May  22,  1902. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
449 
Primula  sinensis,  The  Duchess. 
So  seldom  do  the  Floral  Committee  of  the  Royal  Horticul¬ 
tural  Society  bestow  an  Award  of  Merit  on  a  variety  of  a  liori.st’s 
no\^  er  of  a  clasi;.  such  as  this  belongs  to,  that  M'hen  Primula 
sinensis  I  ho  Ducliess  receivod  tlie  distinction,  a  short  \vhile  ago, 
tJio  plant  became  an  immediate  object  of  interest,  and  none 
seeing  it  could  fail  to  admire.  This  is  undoubtedly  the  loveliest 
\aiiety  of  the  Chinese  Primula  at  present  offered  to  the  growers, 
the  eye  i.s  golden-yellow,  round  which  there  is  a  pretty  zone  of 
rosy-carmine,  the  outer  parts  of  the  corolla  being  a  silvery  peach- 
Ime  bordering  on  to  pale  lilac,  and  the  edges  of  the  .segments 
are  fringed.  I  he  flowers  are  large,  splendidly  formed,  and  of 
gieat  .siihstance.  1  he  truss  i.s  well  held  up  above  the  foliage. 
Uur  illustration  on  this  page  shows  the  characteristics  of  the 
plant. 
- - 
Old  Time  Gardening, 
(Coiitinneil  from  page  160.) 
Me  enter  now  upon  a  period  which,  thanks  to  the  novel  art 
of  printing,  becomes  by’  degrees  less  and  less  involved  in 
obscurity,  and  gardening,  emerging  out  of  its  state  of  , semi¬ 
torpidity’,  advances,  at  first  slowly,  but  nei’ertheless  surely', 
towards  the  proportions  it  has  as.sumed  in  the  present  day. 
The  last  instalment  of  the  subject  to  some  extent  over¬ 
lapped  the  stage  from  which  I  now  design  to  start,  but  it  was 
necessary  to  do  so  in  order  to  clear  the  way,  and  indeed  it  ivould 
be  somewhat  cumbersome  to  be  exactingly  correct  as  to  the 
progression  of  dates.  In  this  respect  I  shall,  I  fear,  transgress 
again  immediately'.  Henry  VIII.  sent  a  very'  learned  man, 
Mr.  Leland,  on  a  mission  through  the  several  counties  of 
England  to  report  on  anything  that  struck  him  as  worth  noting, 
and  though  gardening  does  not  occupy  much  of  the  seven 
volumes  which  were  printed  from  his  manuscript,  there  is 
Primula  sinensis,  The  Duchess. 
Reduced  onc-half. 
sufficient  to  show  horticulture  to  have  been  in  a  flourishing 
condition  in  1533,  when  he  began  to  itinerate  England.  In 
tact,  the  impression  conveyed  by  a  perusal  of  Leland’s  niulti- 
tanous  notes  is  that  gardens  were  so  common  as  to  call  for  no 
special  comment. 
Henry  YIII.  an  Leland. 
An  impression  of  this  nature  is  certainly  formed  in  a  case 
like  the  following.  Describing  Morle,  in  Derbyshire,  he  re¬ 
marks  of  the  gardens :  — “  Ther  is  much  Pleasur  of  Orchardes 
of  great  varietie  of  Frute  and  fair  made  Walks  and  Gardens 
as  ther  is  in  any  place  in  Lancastreshire.”  From  which  one 
might  reasonably  expect  to  discover  something  definite  concern¬ 
ing  gardening  in  the  latter  county.  But  not  one  garden  is 
even  mentioned.  The  description  in  which  the  greatest  int(>rest 
centres  is  that  of  Wresil,  or  M’resehel,  one  of  the  seven  castles 
belonging  to  the  wealthy  and  powerful  Earl  of  Northumberland. 
This  castle,  in  our  antiquary’s  opinion,  was  of  no  great  age, 
the  stones  having  a  new  appearance.  It  was  “  moted  about  in 
three  parts,”  and  then  he  goes  on  to  say: — “The  Garde  Robe 
in  the  Castelle  was  exceeding  fair,  and  so  wer  the  gardenis 
withyn  the  Mote,  and  the  Orchardes  without.  And  yn  the 
Orchardes  wer  mountes  opere  topiaris  writhen  about  with 
Degrees  like  Turnings  of  Cokilshillis  to  come  to  the  top  without 
Payn.”  There  was  also  a  banqueting  house  in  this  orchard, 
which,  by  the  way,  seems  to  have  formed  part  of  an  extensive 
park.  Comparing  the  above  with  certain  entries  in  the 
“Northumberland  Household  Book,”  written  at  this  same 
Wresil,  from  1512  onwards,  a  very'  clear  idea  may  be  gained  of 
the  state  of  gardening  as  practised  on  a  nobleman’s  estate  when 
Henry  VIII.  began  to  reign. 
The  household  was  composed  of  166  persons,  and  among  the 
numerous  servants  who  bulk  so  largely  in  this  household  was 
one  “  gardener  for  setting  of  herbes,  clipping  of  knots,  and 
sweepynge  the  garden  cleane.”  The  fact  that  only  one  man 
is  mentioned  has  been  held  to  prove  the  low  condition  of  garden¬ 
ing  at  this  period,  but  it  is  plain  that  his  duties  were  confined 
to  the  gardens  “  wdthyn  the  Mote.”  He,  as  we  have  seen, 
formed  part,  of  the  household,  with  whom  he  was  lodged  and  fed 
in  the  castle,  his  wages  being  those  of  a  groom  at  20s.  a  year. 
Another  entry  in  the  “Household  Book ’’  projects  some  light 
on  another  phase  of  gardening — that  of  purchasing  and  selling. 
“  From  henceforth  there  be  no  herbes  bought,  seeing  that  the 
cooks  may  have  inewe  (enough)  in  my  lord’s  garden.”  This 
would  lead  one  to  expect  market  gardens  to  have  been  distri¬ 
buted  over  the  country ;  but  it  was  customary  to  dispose  of 
surplus  produce  from  private  gardens,  and  not  unlikely  less 
princely  establishments  would  help  to  provide  “  my  lord’s  ”  cooks 
with  vegetables  when  home  resources  failed.  In  the  case  of  the 
Bishop  of  Ely’s  garden,  when  it  was  let  in  this  century,  the 
Bishop  reserved  the  right  to  cut  a  great  quantity  of  Roses,  and 
not  improbably  these  possessed  a  marketable  value. 
A  condensed  description  of  the  garden  and  orchards  at 
Thornbury,  which  extended  to  four  acres,  will  further  help  to 
convey  a  good  idea  of  gardening  at  this  period.  Exactly  as  at 
Wresil,  there  was,  on  the  east  side  of  the  castle,  a  garden  to 
walk  in,  closed  with  high  walls,  embattled.  Besides  this  “  privy  ” 
garden  was  a  “  large  and  a  goodly  Orchard,  full  of  young 
graffes  well  leaden  with  fruit,  many  Roses,  and  other  pleasures,” 
with  many  alleys  to  walk  in  “  openly.”  A  raised  walk  extended 
all  round  the  orchard,  with  resting  places  covered  thoroughly 
with  Whitethorn  and  Hazel.  The  whole  was  enclosed  with 
“  sawin  pale,  and  without  that,  ditches  and  quickset  hedges.” 
These  were  pierced  by  posterns  leading  into  a  goodly  park. 
About  a  hundred  years  later  Lawson’s  description  of  an  orchard 
coincides  in  a  remarkably  exact  manner  with  the  above  and 
the  orchard  at  Wresil — vegetables,  flowers,  and  fruits  having 
been  cultivated  together,  and  it  too  possessed  its  walks,  seats, 
mounts,  &c.  The  general  impression  left  on  one’s  mind  is  that 
the  orchard  combined  in  itself  a  vegetable  garden,  a  garden 
of  the  hardiest  fruits^ — there  could  be  no  wall  fruit. — and  a 
pleasure  garden  with  its  raised  walks  and  pleasant  seats,  its 
alleys  bordered  by  common  flowers,  and  its  raised  mounts 
sometimes,  as  we  have  seen  it  happened  at  Wresil,  laboriously 
adorned  with  clipped  vegetation.  These  were  country  gardens, 
and  by  a  reference  to  Lawson  later  on,  it  will  be  seen  that  this 
style  of  garden  existed  for  a  very  long  time. 
Foundation  of  Hampton  Court. 
Hampton  Court  dates  from  this  period,  the  Palace  having 
been  commenced  by  Wolsey  in  1520,  and  the  gardens  were  laid 
out  in  knots  with  alleys  and  arbours  all  closely  secluded  by 
stone  walls.  In  1533  Henry  VIII.  remade  the  gardens,  and 
introduced  a  number  of  “  beestes  in  freestone”  and  “stone 
bests,”  and  “sixteen  of  the  Kynges  and  Queenys  beestes  in 
tymber  standing  about  the  mounte  in  the  Kynges  new  garden.” 
“  A  bourder  of  Rosemary  three  years  old  was  set  about  this 
mount.”  Rosemary,  it  may  here  be  interpolated,  was  always 
planted  “three  years  old,”  at  which  age  it  had  become  some¬ 
what  woody,  and  able  to  withstand  frost.  The  gardens  were 
